


this gift is a curse

by kimaracretak



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Abandoned & Haunted Spaceship, Eldritch locations, F/F, Horror, POV Second Person, Time Loop, Time Loop - Becomes Creepier with Every Loop, Time Loop - Both Characters Stuck in Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22340029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: (The eyeless crow shall cry your name in redThrough landscape, through death you have fed)"We're standing on the grave of history," Kreia says, and yes: the dead, the reason you have walked for so long, of course she has brought you here.
Relationships: Female Jedi Exile & Kreia, Female Jedi Exile/Kreia
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19
Collections: Return to the Iron Triangle - January 2020





	this gift is a curse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/gifts).



> time 4 space witches :3

Something about the ship is pulling at the back of your mind - harsh, familiar, something not repeated in too long that you've let slip away. You couldn't even say which life it belonged to: the one from now, or the person you were ... then.

Kreia's hands are cold on your shoulders and this, at least, is the now: you, and her, and the ship that shouldn't be.

There is no reason it should feel familiar or right (is there) and there is no way you've been here before (is there) and there's no way you should recognise this (is there) and you're alone or -

"Focus." Kreia's hands tense, curl; her fingertips digging sharp into the too-soft space underneath your collarbones, her thumbs against your shoulder blades forcing you to stand up, _up_.

"I am." The words are thick in your throat, and her disapproval fills what little space there is between you. A lie?

You don't think so. Does she think so?

Breath comes easier than words: and there is nothing but breath, not even the nothing that a cloaking device pulled around itself. You're alone with Kreia - aren't you?

"Closer." Her hands are tight and cold and you don't trust her enough to be doing this but you are, you're here and not pulling away - not fleeing for the questionable safety of the Ebon Hawk, if you wanted to, if you could. "We're standing on the grave of history," Kreia says, and yes: the dead, the reason you have walked for so long, of course she has brought you here.

"And we need to walk further in." You mean it to be a question. It isn't.

**

Back to the airlock, though, and the doors shut behind you, dull and final as you sink to the ground. The deckplates are cold, as is fitting for a ship so long abandoned. The airlock is sealed, the docking clamps dark: no residual heat or energy from the Ebon Hawk to drift through and bring anything else resembling life back to the empty shell.

Only you, only Kreia. She sits cross-legged on the floor, across from you like a mirror of everything you've forgotten how to say.

"I know this place."

She inclines her head, doesn't reach out to you. Still: a show of support, one you would never admit to yourself matters.

"Was I dead here?"

No. Her face shutters, her feelings seep away from you like light must have once drained from this vessel.

"Did you bring me here?" Questions are harder now, you feel as though you must have used up all the good ones once you left Peragus armed with the scraps of your old life.

Kreia shifts closer, or perhaps you do. Her hands are on your knees, the only warm thing. "No. You did that yourself, once. I've only followed you since."

"Where." Your throat is dry. "Where are you going to follow me next?"

"Forward from Malachor," she says, "The only place we can go. Further into the ship. Until you see."

"See - " But she's walking forward already, and you scramble to your feet: forward, ever forward, as the airlock shuts again behind you.

**

"We're missing something."

At the centre of the ship again, hands on the computer console, hands against metal underneath Kreia's hand and Kreia's empty sleeve. Sometimes, now, when you look down you are surprised to find you have two, still - but you can count them.

You can't count the number of times you've been here. If you asked Kreia, she wouldn't answer (you've asked before) and if you asked yourself the headache would come back (it never stays gone for long) and if you asked the ship you would -

You might get an answer.

It might not be true, but it would be real, real as the Force, real as Kreia, real as you. Less true than either of you, or more, and Kreia would know which one matters. Has she tried to teach you? Do you know?

"Focus." Kreia's arm curls around your waist, and she doesn't look at you. "You're so much closer now.

"What's here, Apprentice? And what isn't?"

Her breath is warm against the shell of your ear, her lips dry. You can't, don't want to focus on anything but the solidity of her, so close there's not even space for a lie between your bodies.

"Absence."

It's the right word. You're not using it right, not yet, but you know now. Remember. Hold on to the console, bits of durasteel flaking off under your nails as the airlock shuts behind you.

**

  
You step over the crack in the floor, the space where the ice is starting to crystallise. Again, again, and the ship that isn't a ghost ship is falling apart around you. Picked apart by your hands and Kreia's voice as you inch closer to the truth.

Your head hurts. Your feet know the way.

Kreia is waiting for you, leaning against the clear wall overlooking the engine bay. The glass fractures out behind her, split so thin you're not sure if the cracks are there or in the Force. Maybe it doesn't matter.

"How much do you remember? Every time we do this."

"All of it." She raises an eyebrow, pushes off the wall. Where the stump of her wrist had been a smear of crimson gashes across the glass, sharp and real. More real than either of you? "You're closer every time - we are. Once more, perhaps, or twice?"

She presses her empty wrist to your cheek and it's dry, warm, not bloody at all. "Your wrist, it -"

"Not anymore." She cups your cheek with her other hand, and your head turns, almost of its own volition. Lips against her palm and the energy, life, presence of - of her, of the bond between you and -

Only between you.

"I said - last time. Absence. What else is with us?"

Kreia shakes her head, her palm unmoving on your cheek. "No. _No_. Still the wrong question. Come back to the airlock."

**

She's with you this time. Fingers tangled in yours, _mind_ tangled with yours and it's not - it's not the help you want or think you need, but it's what she'll give and you're so _close_.

"Look at me. Look at what we have. This is what's true."

The deck is uneven under your feet. The airlock never made a sound in closing.

Had it ever closed? Had you ever come here from - from -

Something is curling at the back of your skull, under your skin, under Kreia's hand as she winds her fingers into the hair at the nape of your neck and presses your foreheads together.

She's never touched you like this: and this, too, pulls at you - familiar, unfamiliar, bound. It's still Kreia, improbably, and nothing else is. That is what matters.

"Everything else will lie to you," and plenty else has, and you've survived, and Kreia hasn't and you've survived that too, and whatever else is on this ship has never spoken once in all the times you've been here and -

_That's it._

She feels your recognition, her nails dig into your skin and you know you must be bleeding now, to match her wrist the last time you were here.

"Do you trust me?"

You shouldn't. "Yes."

"What are we haunted by?"

Life. Death. The Force. Emptiness. "Nothing."

"Are you willing to walk forward for this?"

Only because it's her. "Yes."

**

The airlock closes, the interior of the Ebon Hawk spills out before you and around your ship there is only the debris cloud. You're tired - stretched thin across too much space. The deck is too real - too solid.

You liked it better when the only true thing was Kreia at your side, however untrustworthy she was.

But she's still here: pale and washed out under the artificial lights, blind eyes burning into you like the only things that matter.

And they are.


End file.
